of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 729

intensified effort on the part of the American public, backing to the limit our
military leaders' under our Commander-in-chief, the President of the United
States.

No halfway measures can succeed now. The lives of American boys are
in jeopardy tonight in various parts of the globe where they have gone to
uphold American rights against the 20th Century gangsters. To meet the
enemy on even terms requires greater sacrifices than the American people
have made to date. We must realize that food stuffs and clothing and other
supplies are needed sorely by them and that there is not enough to be found
to satisfy both our armies and the folks at home. Therefor, if the civilian
population insists upon having all it wants it is clear that the soldier boys
are being deprived of what is essential for their welfare and their safety.

That is a small price to pay to maintain the possessions which have been
ours. Others have done more than we to prevent the success of Hitler. The
people of Britain, for instance, have* defended heroically their homeland and
in doing so have aided the American interests. The English people have
given, willingly, nearly everything they have, their comforts, their homes,
their lives, when necessary.

Because we have enjoyed greater liberties, there devolves upon us greater
responsibilities. We must work and we must sacrifice with an unconquerable
spirit. We must attain to uncharted heights of National Unity. We must
stop at nothing to win this war and our duty will not be discharged until we
exert every energy to save from destruction the glorious assets of American
citizenship.

But Eastern Shoremen do not intend to relinquish their rights or their
privileges. Three hundred years of devotion to duty and of contribution to
the betterment of civilization have produced a stamina and a determination
in the present day Eastern Shoremen to fight, and if need be, to die for those
things which are dearer than life itself.

If we were to be asked to what goal can the citizen with such a back-
ground be pointed in the present day, the answer might be of a two-fold nature.
In the first place, his active interest in good government is all-essential.
Would it not be futile to wage battles to preserve a form of government
only to have it found that such a government is administered insufficiently,
corruptly or indifferently? Throughout the generations the greatest par-
ticipation in the functioning of the State government has been given by the
citizens of the Shore. May that interest never wane because government will
be as good as the people require it to be.

While the problems which might be recounted by the present day Gover-
nor of Maryland are vastly different from those which faced Maryland's
first Royal Governor, Sir Francis Nicholson, the essentials are the same. Our
form of government has been determined by the people and the people alone
will shape its future.

A second present-day duty undoubtedly is the obligation to preserve our
basic freedoms. The glorious history of the past will be for naught unless
today and tomorrow we preserve the possessions which have been ours. With